Originally a Tony-nominated Broadway play in 1978 starring Glenn Close, written by Paul Giovanni, and based on Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of the Four, The Crucifer of Blood was later restaged in Los Angeles in 1980, starring Charlton Heston as Sherlock Holmes and future Holmes Jeremy Brett as Dr. Watson. In this 1991 film version, Richard Johnson subs for Brett, as Watson, and joins Heston's Holmes as they attempt to help a beautiful young woman's opium-addicted father, a former army officer, break free of a curse that has pursued him since he absconded with a treasure chest in colonial India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.